Year: 2015

One more day in work until a little break !

Yep. Time for a little break. The usual signs of me getting into mental fatigue is that I miss words out or occasional words get mixed with words that shouldn’t be there. I see this when I look back on posts I’ve published or emails I send. Perhaps in texts I write !

Yep. Week off next week, it’s me taking the opportunity to recharge a bit before the mayhem leading up to Xmas starts. I have plans … Daft plans but still plans.

Definitely pizza tomorrow night, I picked up a copy of Mad Max Furiosa Road last night which is almost certainly going to accompany the pizza. That’s another sign of tired ! MMFR was part of a 2 for £ deal and when a lovely lady asked me what the other one was earlier, I just could not remember. (I peeked, it’s the rather decent Dawn of the Planet Of The Apes).

I also picked up the Indiana Jones movies too (all 4) and a copy of Laura Marling’s A Creature I Don’t Know. The Jones movies are something I’ve intended to pick up for a while now. I owned the box set of the first 3 on dvd, my dad had number 4. So I donated my dvd copies to my dad to complete his set with the intention of upgrading to the bluray box set “soon”. Haha, they finally dropped to an acceptable price.

That’s one daft thing about the shops … They do 2 for £ deals, 3 for £20, 5 for £30 deals. You’ll only go for those deals if you can pick out enough movies to make up the 3 or the 5. With me yesterday, I couldn’t see anything really suitable to go with Furiosa Road. Why did I get Apes ? Erm … I needed the loo. Oops. Never let yourself be rushed into buying things for the wrong reasons.

It’s daft though – I can rarely pick out enough for the 3 for or 5 for deals. Yet if they just made them cost £6 each, my bluray collection would … need another set of shelves. But with me not seeing enough for the 3/5 for, they stay on the shop shelves.

It’s not just the movies though, Laura Marling was a speculative buy at £3 for that album. Plus I’ll pick up a few more from Rudimental, Gabrielle Aplin and … more that my brain is too fried to remember. Oh ! Yeah. Ellie Goulding has a new one coming out soon, as does Mindy Gledhill.

I’m getting sidetracked …

Yeah ! Stuff while away. Need the boiler sorted out, that’s been going on far too long and it’s now struggling to give suitable amounts of hot water. Not so good. I like that feeling of nicely hot water on my back, it helps ease out some of the stiffness in the back and shoulders.

Catching up with the recorded stuff ! At the moment it’s a couple of episodes of Castle. Not sure where that series is going. It’s in its 7th series now. It’s been very good but has it been going on too long ?

There’s cricket on at the moment too, although it’s the kind of cricket you leave on in the background all muted. I’ll time-delay (start of play is 7am) watch a few days of it.

There’s another Comic Con on in London on the weekend of Fri 23 to Sun 25. I’m curious about this, tempted to go. But … it’s way better in company and one lovely lady comic con addict is still struggling with a poorly ankle. That’s not good if the trip involves walking into the halls (1+ mile from the underground station last time) and lots more walking. London Comic Con is an insanely long day compared to the one in Birmingham. Better to save it for when you’re more ready for all the walking.

I’d go on the Friday when one of the best (naughtiest ?) laughs and wisest voices on youtube will be gracing the stands with her presence. I think one of the sweetest voices will be there too. (The laugh would belong to Kim and the voice to Hannah). I don’t watch nearly as much gaming stuff on Youtube now but I still watch most of what Hannah and Kim come out with. It’s just way better quality than what the men come out with. With the ladies, it’s fun with a lot of professionalism behind it. The typical bloke youtuber just screams, carries on and acts like a child to the point where their voices will carry through walls to where more professional people are trying to record with the idiot voice being picked up on the other person’s videos.

You can probably tell how my attitude differs between the various people on the youtubes.

It won’t all be lazing about though. Need to make a dent in cleaning the house up and getting it all in order. It would be kinda nice to have visitors again sometime … That was actually what kicked off the Mall run last night, having another peek around Wickes and B+Q for Stuff. One of those has another 50% off offer going on bathroom stuff again, the last one of those AND NEVER COMING AGAIN ! was in May. This latest version ends in November and you can bet there will be another after that.

Lesson for this post – buy stuff when it’s convenient for you, not when the people wanting your money want you to buy.

That kinda sounds like the “Do what your enemy doesn’t want you to do” quote doesn’t it. I guess it applies ! The commercial people want your money, you should be looking to give them as little as you can get away with.

Right – mental energy flagging – be well people.

And there’s a good chance that’ll be me on Caturday.

Or a little inspiring (person) ?

Been struggling lately.

There’s physical fatigue combining with mental burn out as well. I’ve hopefully identified what was breaking me physically, my metabolism seems to be waking up again since I stopped having the hayfever tablets. I suspect it’ll take a little while for those to go out of my system properly but I’ve felt a little more active and bouncy since given them up. Hopefully that’s not just placebo effect.

The mental fatigue is partly bouncing around at work doing stuff, fighting a body that doesn’t really want to bounce around. But it’s also lack of sleep. I don’t know how much sleep I got last night, not very much at all. Not for lack of trying either ! Or perhaps I was trying too hard to nod off. It’s that thing again where you’re yawning away yet cannot drop off.

Awkward yep.

Been struggling to find ideas for posts too ! There’s one coming soon about the Volkswagen scandal. We keep hearing more about that and it’s all bad. It looks like a heap of VW owners will have cars that are modified to give far fewer emissions but at the cost of performance and economy. Yet they will need those modifications in order to pass testing.

That’s a good thing for everyone else (air quality in cities is high on the sneeze and teary eyes factor) but really bad for the owners of the cars.

What do I think about it being an owner of a low emissions hybrid car ?

Honestly, I really don’t care very much about the CO2 or NOx emissions of my car. I care much more about the tangibles that cost me money or give me fun. That’s the combination of high power, driveability and economy. My leg has become less painful now that it doesn’t have to finely manage a clutch pedal, I get the WHOOSH ZOOM of overtaking and it’s both the most powerful and best economy of any car I’ve owned. (Ok, the CT beats it in economy, but only just). This car cost £10 in road tax this year, my Focus would have cost £290 in road tax per year for a car that ate double the fuel and was steadily destroying my left leg.

That said, I do care about emissions as a whole – see comment about air pollution in cities. I don’t think diesel cars are the answer, the fuel is inherently dirtier just as it is more economical due to having higher energy density (there’s a chemistry reason for that). I don’t think widespread hybrids are the answer either, although they are a godsend for city traffic. Battery cars ? Maybe for cities but they depend on you having a charging point.

Ooops – I didn’t think this was going to be about cars. The car thing has been coming for a little while though.

Other stuff ? Been gaming a little, I’m maybe halfway through the Deus Ex HR playthrough. It’s a decent game, still has my attention after a few full playthroughs. The Warcraft subscription has been binned, I got to a point where I would have to depend on other people to proceed and that opens you up to the cesspool that is multiplayer gaming with random people. And here I am considering having a peek at World Of Warships … Oh and there’s also Elite (Internet Spaceship Pilot Game), I had another toe dip into that one at the weekend. I’m back to trading. Sadly though, their servers have been very unstable lately since the latest patch went live.

World of Warships ? This is the latest from Wargaming.net, I enjoyed playing their World of Tanks game until the grind got boring. The tank game saw 15 tanks vs 15 tanks, varying in size from light scouts, through heavy walls of metal, to self propelled artillery. Fun game, it got the adrenaline going too. The progression model is what hurts the game, around Tier IV (out of X) it takes a while to get through to the next tank. World of Warships is similar, except you’re controlling World War 2 ships instead.

Curious. People who know more about me than I put here will guess why !

Oh my – just seen an ad for Mad Max Fury Road. I gotta get that film and watch it again. It’s at full price though and I try to avoid getting films for too much cash. I have a backlog of films/series to watch, I can wait :-).

I’m hoping to see The Martian again. I’m still planning to have next week off, although I’m keeping a wary eye on work to see if anything will call me in. (It’s options season where we see how much money we need to save, I’m a link in that chain but other people can do what I do). But watching The Martian again would be awesome. I want to get the book read again too to see what was missed from the film.

But it’s not just the film watching that would be awesome, there’s a special little inspiring person who I have a surprise package for. (Oops – I told her that a surprise package was coming, hopefully I haven’t given away too much !)

That’s the thing really. I may be fatigued both mentally and physically at the moment but. It’s help from other people out there that keeps me going.

The natter with like minded colleagues.
Chatting with the work-ish group.
Messages from the wounded sky angel. May you heal up soon.

Hopefully it won’t be almost a week again until the next post. I need ideas ! And Memes ! Memes are always good for ideas for posts. I did enjoy doing the Christmas pictures meme last year, that actually worked wonders in restructuring how I do posts. A little shorter and using lots of pictures to hopefully make people smile and to break up the wall of text.

Oh and the occasional borrowed joke too.

Be well people or …

Only kidding with the lick thing. Hugs are way better than licks. Unless you are a short haird golden labrador with a rapier like tongue.

Lovely pooch. Another with the tail that often disappeared into a happy motion blur.

Currently watching the grand final of Great British Bake Off.

It’s one of those wonderfully British series, an elimination contest which starts with 12 contestants with one going home every week. They make three batches of cake (and other bakeries but … cake is life) over the weekend and the tastiest, best baked, best presented cakes earn the bakers a place in the next week.

Grand Final tonight – my money’s on Nadiya. Partly for what she bakes, mostly because she’s a huge character.

All those cakes look so amazingly tasty too, even though half of them are way too healthy for me. Oh – it’s inspired the latest avatar. Wonder if they’d accept a Dwagon Helper ?

Have gloves, will travel. I’d kinda like to learn how to bake again. Because baking leads to cookies. Cookies lead to happiness. And the Happy Cookie Place is back in a month :

Yum. Really looking forward to raiding that place again. It visits Bristol as part of the German Christmas Market. Who says it’s a bad thing when the Christmas fever starts up in … January ? Ok, this market appears in November, which is fairly ok. That’s not as hugely early as some places. The Xmas stuff is up in John Lewis already …

I could have gone off to see The Martian again with the work-ish friends but … it would have involved heading home from work (to see if fresh cinema vouchers have arrived) and then off to the cinema place. This would have meant fighting through the worst of the traffic on both of those.

Traffic is really bad at the moment here. I have several alternate routes I can use between home and work, trouble is, most of them are off the list now because the roadworks are causing mayhem. I’m amazed we haven’t had gridlock due to crashes yet. There are signs for the way people are supposed to negotiate the lane closures but … this is Bristol. People don’t read signs. Or indicate.

Aside – oh wow. We’ve just had the winner of the Bake Off and there are tears all round. Happy tears. Because the winner has come out of a bit of a shell to expose a huge talent at baking. Well done 🙂 (I’m being vague cos … spoilers !!!)

Phew ! That distracted me away from horrid drivers. I’ve gone like :

(Tiny Bit Tired – another gap in the collection!)

I’m wondering what the cause of the gathering malaise I’m feeling is. I’m going to take the week after next off work to try and recover some energy. It’s partly from burning too much mental energy, both in work and since I’ve been on the games again. A lot of it is from still not sleeping particularly well. I’m at a loss there, I can be yawning my head off at 11.30 but when I go to bed at 12.00, I’ll still be yawning but my body won’t sleep.

I have another theory there. I’ve been on the Acrivastine based hayfever tabled for … more time than I can remember ! 2 of those a day, one before bed, one before doing stuff in the morning. They’re 8 hour coverage pills, so that’s decent coverage. Trouble is, I tend to build up a resistance to certain things. Previous hayfever tablets have seen me react badly to them. How ?

I’d have one before a game of cricket, to open up my lungs and help me breathe more easily. I used to have a quick recovery (untested now!) time with the running around but it depended on me being able to breathe efficiently. Hayfever type allergies tended to interfere with that … plus there’s the factor of your eyes tearing up when you’re trying to bat. It’s tough to dab eyes when wearing cricket gloves ! But I was also seeing side effects where instead of being power legs, my legs were weighing me down. It’s like there was nothing in the tank. Lots of deadweight from supposedly power muscles. Apparently I was getting that side effect from the hayfever tablets (Citirizine based).

So I’m going to cut out the hayfever tablets and see what happens. I was taking them primarily to help out my outsides but I’m not sure they need the help any more. I’m also feeling like my legs are deadweight again, although that’s partly down to the damage in my hips.

Stress too. Work’s gone a bit silly at the moment for various reasons that I won’t go into here. It does help having a “We’re all in this together !” spirit, so those who share that help each other out. (There are some who are quite happy in their islands of misery but can’t resist sharing)

So I’ll step away for a week for a change of scene and a chance to recharge the batteries. I’ll be heading out a few times over that week too. No Shauns to hunt but people to help out. I think a very good friend will be appreciating any help she can get with a house move and another lovely lady will be eager to escape the restrictions of recovering from that broken ankle.

That’s the thing – I’m feeling extremely tired and stressed in general at the moment. But when those messages come in from friends, it really brightens my day and helps dispel the bad thoughts.

I’ll be here in the evenings creaking away louder than the chair I’m sitting in but when those messages come in, I’ll be jumping up with a big smile.

Friends are awesome. Family too. And that family includes the four legged friends too. Someone reminded me of that earlier today by peeking at one of last year’s posts (Furry Friends at the link). I think the big sis would like me to write more about Murph and Ice too, her poochlings. I’ve met Murph when he was a pup, not met Ice yet. They’re a bit too boisterous for Ben to handle. Because Ben would try and keep up with them and he’s a bit old for that.

Talking of Ben, I think he’d hope that a special friend has her paw heal as well as his good paw did :

The good paw is the one on the right, he was born with genes that made his front paws curl in. That left paw is causing him real problems now but the right paw was broken in an argument with a vehicle. We adopted Ben when he was recovering from that and the right paw healed better than new. I’ve not visited Ben for a while, it’d be great to see the lovable old geezer and rub him behind his ears again.

I hope one special friend has as happy a result as that !
(The healing of the paw, not so sure she’d be too impressed with someone rubbing her behind her ears)

Currently watching the ending bits of Avengers – Age Of Ultron.

For something so heavily hyped and with the excellence of prior movies in the sequence, I was expecting this one to be really good.

And it is a pretty decent movie too. However … it’s not nearly the best in its series. It’s strange, the avengers movies don’t seem to bear up that well to repeat viewings. I think I know why …

There’s more action in a couple of minutes than there were in the whole of The Martian. Yet I think The Martian is the film I’ll keep going back to over the years. I’m definitely hoping people give me the excuse to watch it again numerous times over the next few weeks.

So what’s missing?

It’s the story at the centre of the movie.

So – let’s compare … Martian vs Avengers.

Action – there’s just about enough in The Martian. Not too much, not too little. Also note that one of the disaster events in the book was missed out, it wouldn’t have fit in with what they did with the … spoilerdelete … bit. On the other hand, there is the Avengers which has loads of explosions and … when things were getting quiet again, time for another explosion to stop the audience falling asleep. I found it wsa too much.

Characters – there’s very little in the Avengers, they’re all pretty flat cartoon characters, although Hawkeye shows some signs of development. The Martian is all about the characters, at least its central character and how he comes to terms with his situation and stands up and deals with it. Even when things go wrong, especially when things go wrong.

Getting the feels – I’ve been noticing this more and more. Certain movies stir up the inner feelings that bring tears to the eyes. I’m not talking about the cringeworthy stuff. I’m talking about where you identify with what’s happening with the characters and what they’re going through. It’s a sign that you’re invested in the characters and their story when it evokes the feelings. That most definitely happens in the latter stages of The Martian. I never got it in the Avengers.

(I’m trying really hard to avoid the spoilers !)

Making you chuckle – The Avengers has a couple of ongoing themes running through it that are intended to make you laugh. They fall flat. The Martian has a slightly nutty central character who meets his situation with humour. That said, some of the humour is removed and some of the attempts by the screenwriters (illustrating the Hermes plan) really don’t match up with the original writing.

Hollywood strikes, hollywood causes problems.

Hollywood also caused problems with some of the more human science in The Martian, there’s far more in the book and (I haven’t read any reviews yet) it makes some of what is glossed over, make sense. I dunno about you, I wouldn’t want to be living in a driving seat for 50+ days. That’s explained far better in the book and I really don’t know why they would cut that.

I’ll close with …

Go see The Martian ! I hope you’ll love it. But … see it as a prelude to reading one of the best books I’ve read in recent years. It was a 2 and a half hour film but … the bits missed out genuinely add to the story. There’s that thing that all books share :

They are a conduit for your imagination. The better books will let you play out the story in your mind. Your brain fills in the gaps and brings it to life.
They convey feelings and thoughts like no film can.
You can put them down and come back. This is very important. It means the story plays out in its own time, rather than being limited to the time dictated by the dvd, bluray or sitting in the cinema time.

That last point is telling. The Martian film is very good but some of the bits they miss out mar the perfection of the science behind the fiction. The book is absolute perfection in its fiction.

Go read it !

PS I don’t think I’ll bother picking up the Avengers comics.
PPS The Avengers gag reel did make me chuckle. But not nearly as much as the one on Guardians Of The Galaxy which I must watch again soon.
PPPS I am Groot.

So I watched Everest today.

It’s a film about mountaineers on our highest mountain (except for K2) who successfully manage to reach the summit but … drama ensues as the mountain is battered by a massive storm.

Nah. Kidding.

I watched The Martian today.

My advice ? If you have the slightest interest in science, if you like a good story, a bit of drama and of course, humour, this one has it all. It helps that the book is one of the best books I’ve read over the past few years. The science is top notch, the drama comes in through accidents that are totally plausible* and there are a lot of feels in here.

*(Interstellar was a great film but most of its drama was caused by people being diabolically stupid and, while the visual science was groundbreaking, the actual science was appalling.)

Here, a lot of the drama comes in through unintended mishaps, things going far too well (BOOM!) and real life physics having some fun.

Oh – go watch the book after you’ve read the film. (uhoh – mixed words. Getting mentally tired and probably need time off). The two have roughly the same story but they very definitely get the best out of both forms of media.

Film – great visuals in the scenery, plus it brings out the emotes of the characters. It paces the drama really well, the film feels just long enough and goes by fairly quickly. Ridley Scott does well here. I have mixed feelings about Ridley Scott, he’s made some great films (Alien) and some turkeys (Prometheus). This matches his great direction with an incredible story.

Book – has more great stuff. The film is already 2 hours 20 minutes, which is getting on the long side. The film skips over a couple of detail parts in the book, which probably would have made it a 3 hour film. I don’t think people really want those (despite what Peter Jackson and Chris Nolan think). The book can go into the deeper thoughts of the characters and explains things much better than the film. That’s not to say that the film will lose you in the science, it’s just fleshed out more in the book. A couple of minor plot points were missed off the film too.

I’m quite looking forward to reading the book again. I must finish Arthur C Clarke’s Rendezvous With Rama so I’m not doing a book abandon. I know someone who I think would quite like to hear what I think of the Rama book …

Yeah – I really enjoyed The Martian, although I am a bit of a space nut. Combing stuff that makes a space nut happy with engineering, survival stuff and great science makes me a very happy filmgoer. I’ll definitely be getting this one when it comes out on bluray. AT FULL PRICE !!!!

And there’s not many films I get at full price now, I have so much of a queue of films to watch that I can afford to wait until they go in the 2 for £25 or even better 5 for £30.

I’ll go see it again in the movies too. Did I mention that it was getting me in the feels at certain points ? That seems to be happening more and more in films.

Other stuff ? I’m going to cancel the Warcrafty stuff. I bought 3 months of game time which will be enough for me to see all the stuff you can do with a single character. After that, it can get pretty grindy. That is, doing the same thing over and over again ad nauseum. Plus I’ve seen the signs of addiction coming in where you end up playing a game because you feel some sort of obligation to, instead of having fun with it.

I’ve been on another game instead …

I’m getting close to where I can get that view, it’s just under halfway into the game. In my previous playthroughs, I tended to reload saves way too often. Get seen when you’re trying to sneak ? Reload. I’m keeping that to just when the hacking minigame has a bad result or if the chat sequences decide to go contrary.

I play through with the nonlethal style, knocking out bad guys instead of putting holes in them. You have to be sneaky for that to work. Why ? Partly cos it feels better, guard dudes have families ! But mostly because it gives you a very minor experience boost that may get you ever so slightly more powerful by the end of the game. And it’s a tough game too …

As I found when trying to bring a rocket launcher to a gunfight. Didn’t work. I was shocked ! But – if you’re fighting someone who has a big gatling gun for an arm, it helps to have rapid fire on your side. Not a rocket launcher which is far too easy to miss with and takes ages to reload.

Time to leg it – I’ll be remembering watching The Martian while wondering if anyone is going to give me the excuse to watch it in the cinemas again ? Hopefully this time without the kiddies (who should have been in school) who didn’t have the patience to sit through 15 minutes of film, let alone 2 hours +. No parents in sight and they seemed on the borderline of the 12A cert …

That’s one thing about watching movies at home, it costs about as much with bluray/dvd, you make your own food (and can therefore trust it more) and you have a pause button in the case of too many fizzy drinks.

PS Go watch The Martian.

Gaming can be fairly odd.

I touched on this in the last post where I talked about Warcraft and Needing to get my character up to maximum level, level 100. Staying in the game past the point where it got unhealthy (my neck hates me today).

It’s weird when a game hits “need”. I went back into Warcraft because I got interested in the storyline again. Ok, it was actually another, similar, game called Wildstar that got my interest up in WoW again and then the storyline got my attention. It’s strange … the last few expansions to Warcraft have had mixed opinions :

Pandaland – people loved this ! But I found it to be very grindy. The charm of the Chinese themed Panda-people didn’t overcome the tedium of going through the zones. The story didn’t grab me.
Draenor – this one starts with a well crafted ride through a story that puts you centre stage. That strong story does seem to be fizzling out a little too though.

They’ve been bringing in Farmville type aspects as well. Pandaland had a farm which steadily expanded, Draenor has the garrison. This just increases the addiction nature of the game.

But wait ? Isn’t a game supposed to be about the fun ?

Some games have an odd conception of the word fun. Warcraft has improved, although at a cost of a lot of its soul. It’s far easier to make money and be prepared for raids than it used to be. Previously, if you did quests at maximum level, you’d get very little credit. Now, the experience you got turns into gold. Makes it easier to make money. However, at the same time, the game has been massively dumbed down from what it used to be.

But that’s one game that’s been getting it right with the mix between gameplay, story and keeping the player interested. I mentioned grindiness earlier … I made the grievous error over the weekend of checking out mining in Elite … I’d done mining before in Eve. The two games are similar … and different with the job of mining.

Elite and Eve – you bash away at rocks with mining lasers and get minerals from the rocks. In Eve, the rocks go into your cargo hold. In Elite, you use collector limpet drones to pull in the mineral fragments.

Getting them home – When I mined in Eve, I would be running two accounts. One was a miner … but the mining barge cargo capacity was tiny and you lost way too much time going to the station and back to drop off the goodies. So the second account ran an industrial barge (space truck) and did all the running around. It worked well. In Elite, you don’t need the second account plus they haven’t implemented any commander to commander trading mechanisms.

(Elite is far from complete for a multiplayer online game).

Safety – With Elite, you can play in solo mode, which stops you getting molested by player pirates. This is the reason I actually bought the game. It is locked to online servers but I don’t play games any more to be at the mercy of those who put an unhealthy amount of time in, getting them better Stuff than people with less time. The unhealthy ones then bully the slower players. I think that suggests an unhealthy mindset. As unhealthy as the people who I know will play these games for days, continuously. Get outside ! See the Yellow Face !

Oh – in Eve, you’re completely at the mercy of online griefers. In civilised space, there is a police force called CONCORD who blow away griefers. Trouble is, a good griefer will be able to blow up a very expensive mining ship before they got shot by CONCORD and they’ll do this in a very cheap ship. The alternative is to be in alliance so you can mine in lawless space, keeping an eye on the intelligence channels warning of pirates entering your territory. If you see the enemy appear in the local system, that’s usually too late and they may get you on the way to safety. It’s a dangerous universe.

Mining in these games is oddly cathartic though. It’s like you’re getting cash without much effort, it’s just a bit slower. But …

Where do the proceeds go ?

Elite – you just sell the bits to the stations for a bit of profit and it makes the owners of the station like you a little more. After you sell stuff, it essentially disappears into nothing. Compare that to :
Eve – the players drive the economy. Out in lawless space, no ships get built unless miners get the metals. No ammo gets made without miners. So it’s in the best interest of the shooty players to protect the industrial players.

Oh and there’s also the difference in how much control you get :

Elite ships are more fun to fly :-).

It does get to feel a lot like a job though. That’s a big reason why I left Eve. There were always those players who could put in massive amounts of time. There’s an immense learning curve. And then there’s its hold on your time while you’re doing the Player V Player group stuff. Basically, you go away from keyboard for too long and you’ll be left behind, which is when you die horribly. I hear my alliance, Volition Cult, is actually doing pretty well at the moment – good on ’em :-).

It kinda comes back to story.

Warcraft – your character is running through the lore of the land via a series of quests where you are righting wrongs, clearing out the bad guys or in some of the highlights of the Cataclysm expansion, going on Indiana Jones (or Harrison Jones) inspired adventures.
Elite – there’s no story in the game, outside of what you imagine for your commander. Ok, there are the stories in the Galnet news but these are somewhat pithy and you don’t influence them as a player.
Eve – the players drive 80% of the galaxy. Massive alliances shape the structure. Little players get caught up in that. The political structure is ever changing and the balance is managed by the people who run the game.

I’m actually going back to a wholly single player game for a while. It’s called Deus Ex Human Revolution and tells the tale of a near future dystopia where cybernetic implants are making their mark on our society. They help amputees, assist others with enhancements but at a cost, the body rejects the implants. The story opens as one group finds an answer to that problem. It’s a pretty decent story too, I’ve played it through a few times now and still find it interesting.

Not tonight though – I’m on the road tomorrow which means an easy night tonight and I’m already yawning. Will those yawns now translate into quick to sleep later ? I doubt it. That’s not how my life is going at the moment. Still not getting as much sleep as I need.

Ok, maybe a little garrisonville … Cya !

PS A little extra – I’m not trying to advocate either Warcraft, Eve or Elite as games I think you should play. All I will say there is – play what you find fun. Different people get fun from different things. I actually get more smiles from people distracting me from the game, than from the game itself. And if the game becomes more like work than fun ? Find another game, there’s tonnes of them out there.

I wonder … Let’s see :

(aside – I just copy/pasted thinking it would get me the pic and it dropped in the blank for Tuesday’s Thursday Thirteen. Oops).

I have some of those. Not all of them. But I do recognise them in others. Let’s see … but first …

Haven’t posted much. I don’t think I’ve had that much to post really, although something’s coming something about a certain car manufacturer cheating the emissions tests. But only because it involves the strangeness that adding pee to the mix of fuel and air in a car engine … makes it cleaner. Less emissions and all that. They do it for ships too. Dunno about aircraft. Very strange.

I’ve been gaming perhaps a little too much, my Warcraft mage is now level 100, although she needs another 1400 gold to build her very own castle. She ? Yeah. My mages are female. It started out as a test of whether female characters in online games get different treatment. They did for a while but then it got pretty much established that a female character in game was probably more likely to be male than female. I know why I keep playing with the female characters, it’s the voices.

With the Mass Effect game, I’d much prefer to have Jennifer Hale voicing the character than the bloke. Some games have gender based mechanics but that’s thankfully extremely rare now except with character interaction. You hopefully know what I mean there ;-). And then games like Dragon Age Origins came along … And you could have interactions with characters of the same gender, you could have interactions with 3 characters, one non player character member of your party would even open up interactions with 4 characters … at the same time. Progress !

And this has kinda gone in the opposite way to social anxiety hasn’t it ?

Go to the bathroom to escape – nah. I don’t do this. But there will come a point in social interactions where I feel the press of TOO MANY PEOPLE and I have to escape. Sometimes it’s just outside, sometimes it’s run to the hills and head home.

Feel very uncomfortable without a phone or other crutch – I have to admit, I have internet addiction. I am a loner who has a compulsion to interact with people. I prefer interacting with Special People. Like having messages coming in, looking at the phone and hoping there’s no poles nearby to walk into. Or nattering over the interwebs while gaming, to find that I’m ignoring the game and chatting instead.

That’s Warcraft at least. Elite is a bit different, because you have lots of off keyboard time in that game where it’s flying to stations or docking in stations (I use a docking computer because I’m lazy).

Dwell on a small awkward moment for longer than is necessary – I think I do this, although I can’t remember any examples. Perhaps it’s the thinking about it long after the moment has gone. Those cogs you hear grinding will be my head thinking of myriad ways that the moment could have been less awkward.

There’s a certain mental paralysis …

Never go to a social event without a person who makes you feel comfortable – I think I’m getting better at this. I never used to go to the cinema on my own, although there’s a few times I have done over the past few years. It started with Gravity, where I had a birthday evening to myself. Even had my birthday meal in McDonalds ! The Shame ! (It took longer to get there than it should and I was feeling embarassed about rushing a Wishing Well meal, thought I wouldn’t have enough time and it looked packed).

See ? That’s a classic example where I’ve overcome that to a degree but only so far. I still prefer to go see films in the cinema with other people, it’s better as a shared experience that you can talk about afterwards.

Follow said person way too much – I think I’ve freaked a few people out by paying them perhaps too much attention. I suspect little Kim of Yogscast felt like this, although she still responds to the occasional message of mine over the Twitters ! Hurrah. There’s a few more too. I try to give people space now by not badgering them too much over the messages. Maybe. But I do think of other people constantly, a very few very special ones in particular (their names strangely spell ASK …).

Worry about people beginning to find you obnoxious – oh my yes. My last First Date had someone disappear off for a little while. I thought she’d legged it ! Imagine my relief when she came back. But with the people who I have been in contact with and then contact suddenly ceases (as it has done a few too many times), the dark bits of my mind start telling me I’ve done or said stuff they didn’t like.

And then a message from a good person comes in and those dark bits get banished to a little corner by all the grinning brain cells.

Faking an illness to get out of a social event – maybe, maybe not. Recently it’s been my outsides and they have given me that excuse to not socialise. But I think I’ve managed to hide the damage and the embarassing bits enough to get out the house and into those social events. But then I think back to an incident with Ravenwolf where she was really looking forward to seeing Rocky Horror Picture Show at the Bristol Hippodrome. I didn’t really want to go and that came to a head on the night when I was utterly exhausted. We didn’t go. I can’t remember all the circumstances around that but I think she was going to go with her mum, how come she couldn’t get a lift ?

That’s in the dim and distant past. I think I’ve improved enough now to be in proper control of when I go to social events. Things like declining invites with work colleagues (where with one group, it can just end up being a drinking session – meh). Or really looking forward to hopefully seeing Cupid’s Gift again ? Maybe when her ankle is improved enough to let her out of the house.

Or if another friend wants to check out Bath Xmas market. Bristol Xmas market is coming again soon ! Bring on that Happy Cookie Place :

Cookies and cakes that are larger than your hands are awesome. Even if you have little hands.

Don’t buy anything necessary because the cashier is intimidating – Hmm. Dunno here. I think my grin dissolves most intimidation from cashiers. On the other hand, I’ll walk out of a shop if I think the people who work there are being obnoxious. This includes not speaking to me if I’m trying to get their attention or the old classic :

I was hunting for a car to replace my Rover (awful car). I was walking maybe 20 feet ahead of the mob, including my dad, I was obviously checking out what they had. Salesman walked right past me and started speaking to my dad. I took this very personally … I think he realised his mistake when my dad said it was me looking for the cars. Let’s just say we didn’t even open the doors of the Mazda MX-3 he tried to point us towards.

I still have some of my social anxiety but I think I’m beating it. A couple of wonderful ladies (Cupid’s Gift and LTK) have been helping out my confidence a fair bit over the past year.

If you recognise some of the symptoms above in you, hopefully you find that special friend who will help you with the social anxiety. Someone who will be that shield to keep the anxiety at bay. Someone who will never find you obnoxious. On the contrary, I suspect that person will be highly honoured that you chose them to be that shield. They’ll understand … or you wouldn’t have picked them.

Closing ?

Yep. That means you :-). Get out there and show the world who’s boss.

And it’s ok if you need a friend with you :

They’d be overjoyed that you chose their pokkitz.

Love that sunlight has to be pointed out! British people don't get an awful lot of it so it's good to have it shown to us!

It occurred to me earlier that I don’t believe I’ve had an extended break off work for … many years !

Christmas time doesn’t count, although I’ve managed to wangle a fortnight off every year at that time. Nah – most of the time I’ve had off has just been single weeks. That’s usually enough for me, I start climbing the walls if I’m off for longer.

Thinking a little more, the last time I had a fortnight off in the middle of the year was 2005 and the visit to the States with Ravenwolf and family, which had an … emotional … aftermath. Less said about that the better. Ok – I was out there for a fortnight with them in Orlando, they had another fortnight after in Miami and then when they returned, Ravenwolf announced she was leaving. Heart – in tatters.

🙂 Enough of that :-).

Some of the old pics are still worth bringing out again.

A couple of things made me think though – I think I had this aura of invincibility at work. Or indestructibility. I’m always there, I’m rarely away with sick days. Even with various stuff, I’ve not taken more than a day or two at a time to recover. Let’s see :

Nose Job 1 – happened on a Thursday, I was off work on the Friday although I had one of the colleagues (Diablo) pick me up to retrieve my car from the cricket ground. I was back in work on the Monday. I had occasional other days off work too for getting the snozzle checked out by doctors. And then there were 2 days having the operation to have it straightened. Nose Job 2 was on the NHS so it’s still a little bent, although that’s how I see it, other people can’t tell.

I was back playing cricket by the end of the season, which was good because it let me face down any potential psychological demons before they had a chance to grow over the off season. Not saying I got any runs (maybe 8) but it saw me facing up to quick bowling.

One important thing here – you may not have many days off sick but, especially with head injuries, there can be long term effects that you don’t realise are there. With Nose Job 1, it deeply affected my memory and I think I still feel those effects 12 years later. A once nigh on perfect memory has gaps, where I cannot form a memory. Weird. For 18 months after, I had a mix of amnesia and false memories, where I’d form an actual memory of Doing Stuff that I hadn’t actually done. I’d just mentally rehearsed how I’d do it and that would become actual memory.

The really strange thing is that I can remember some details of that day very clearly. Like the layout of the A and E, the depressing feeling of wicket keeper captaining a side that was being run ragged in the field and the shot that caused Nose Job 1. I think I dropped an easy catch behind the stumps too. Memory is a strange thing.

I’ve actually been hit on the head three times with the cricket. The second time, I was in a helmet and carried on playing during the game, helping our side to a comfortable win. And then I nearly threw up in the changing room after the game.

Three times ? This was really stupid. I was practicing the wicket keeping in the nets and because I was going into batting practice next, I left the helmet off. Cue a freak event …

Legside delivery (where a keeper standing up is unsighted)
Top edge from the batsman
No time to get the hands to where the ball is now going
Lots of blood. Happily no lost teeth but that’s where it hit.

That one probably concussed me for the third time as well, I couldn’t feel hunger or lack of it for the next fortnight. Yet I still came in to work the next day, although this was because I didn’t want to miss out on an End Of Project meal out in town which I knew Snow Queen was going to. Definitely didn’t want to miss that, she was one of the fun things about my last project. I did take the next day off, which I spent in a mental fog. (Wednesday – practice, Thursday – work + meal, Friday – I dunno)

Even with my current and recovering condition with my outsides, I’ve barely been off work for the maybe 4 years it has been affecting me. I’ve been lucky there. If it had been serious Psoriasis, this can develop into Psoriatic Arthritis where the condition attacks the insides as well as the outsides. PA is a serious life changing condition with heavy consequences, especially as the treatment involves immuno-suppressants which have their own serious side effects. My joints have been seriously affected to the point where cricket is a distant possibility but I can still run quick if I need to.

Yep. I’ve been very lucky. Others haven’t.

And I’m thinking of 3 people in particular who are fantastic friends :

The one who broke her back, you wouldn’t know it. I’ve been really lucky to be able to count her as a friend and valued colleague over the past year. She’s been keeping an eye on me and giving me someone to talk to and lots of encouragement. She’s been the knowledgeable ear I’ve needed to keep me sane.
The one who is suffering from very heavy depression at the moment. Your friends are here for you little lady. I hope you can beat those demons and remember that old strength that made you the Heart of my last team. The one everyone else always looked to for a chat, a chuckle and a little bit of kick ass attitude. You can remember !
And the bubbly chuckly one who is recovering from a broken ankle. Get well soon dear one :-). I have something waiting for you when you’re recovered enough to accept visitors who will love to come over to be reassured that you’re ok and on the mend.

All three of those lovely ladies have helped me out no end over the past year. My confidence has improved with them showing me bits of my personality that they seem to like, which I wouldn’t see in myself. Bits of me that they think are special which I discount as being just ordinary.

That’s something very important – even a quiet word, a smile or a happy chat can do wonders for people who are a little lonely.

Do me a favour. If you have a friend that’s struggling, keep an eye on them. Don’t be too intrusive, that can drive them further into their shell. But keep an eye on them. Reassure them that they don’t have to fight those demons alone. That they are loved. I’d have really appreciated this when I got hit in the mouth, I was on my own with that.

Showing that you care for how someone else is doing is the greatest gift you can give. Be generous with it, it costs nothing but gives reward beyond measure.

Oh noes ! Monday ! Don’t worry, it’s nearly finished.

There’s still a little Monday left.

I can’t quite remember what I’ve been getting up to this weekend ! Let’s see :

More pooter stuff, more on that in a bit.
Rugby watching – England won but weren’t exactly setting a Fear US marker for the rest of the teams.
More rugby – it was great to see Japan come from behind to beat South Africa in the dying seconds of that game. True giant killing effort and you know it’s hard won in rugby, because that’s how the game’s played.
Grand Prix “racing” being meh as usual.
Lots of Warcraft, although perhaps not as much as you’d think.
Tonnes of music listening.

Techie stuff first – the decision to get that new router is turning out to be an excellent one. Before, I’d need to power cycle the Little White Box every evening or so, because the music stream would break up. Once it started to go, it wouldn’t come back. Now it does … The audio has coughed a couple of times that I’ve noticed but it didn’t stay broke.

More techie – how does it do this ?
All streaming depends on buffering. The Littlewhitebox audio stream goes at about 1Mbit/s but not always … It’ll stream a little ahead (only a couple of seconds) to account for any difficulties the network may have. If you watch youtube videos, there will be a light grey in the timeline bar ahead of where you are in the video, then a dark bar for the rest. The light grey is where it’s buffered some more in to keep a steady video in case of internet wobbles. For mine, the little blips are where it hasn’t managed to catch up with the buffering after the network has done something else.

The network is also a bit quicker too. Part of that will be that psychosomatic feeling of “I have spent money on this, it must be better”. Come on … you know what I mean there ! But it’s also in quantifiable things like being able to upload pics to Facebook faster, even if the pic is on the desktop and I’m uploading from the laptop. Oh and having Facebook or Twitter loading with Firefox starting up, previously, Firefox would load faster than the wifi connected and would get confused.

I’ve also got an answer for my Macbook Air wifi troubles. (More info at the link). On mine, 5GHz wifi works fine, 2.4GHz is just broken. It doesn’t work and this is across a couple of routers, locations and networks. The solution is to use a USB wifi dongle. Sorted ! And this got tested over a few hours streaming music. I’ll use the built in wifi as standard but have an option now for when I’m elsewhere.

So that makes my network gear :
Apple Littlewhitebox Airport Express – I’d thoroughly recommend these if you want to throw an audio stream across the room to a proper hifi using wifi. It’ll send high quality (1Mbit/s up from 256/320) audio across the network, which I pipe through to the amp with a digital optical connection. No loss there, the audio is as good as it can get. Better than if I was using a wire across the room.
TP-Link Archer D5 modem/router – very happy with this purchase. Hopefully I’ll still be happy with it after a year or so of letting it do its thing !
TP-Link Powerline networking pair – these did their job, although they’re partly redundant now. They’ll be handy if I upgrade my telly to one that looks for a network connection, or if I add networking to my Xbox 360.
TP-Link USB wifi dongle – I bought this for my old Windows laptop to have it talk to the 5GHz wifi on the old router. Now it gives me an option to get around the problems with wifi on the Macbook Air.

(Disclosure note – no compensation has been given for the recommendations given above, all stuff bought with my own money ! And that does mean no Lego Millenium Falcon for me, definitely no Lego Death Star, see ? Endorsements can be a good thing)

What else …

Way too much World of Warcraft. What can I say ? The story has my interest. For now at least. That’s how it has gone for me in previous expansions to the game and my experiences have been counter to what other people say. Pandaland was seen as one of the better expansions but I have to say I found it fairly meh. This expansion has been seen as fairly poor … but I’m caught up far more in the story in this one. Not sure why. Perhaps it’s the Garrison. I’m happy I came back in, although I know that it won’t last.

It can’t last because, funny as this sounds, it has a nasty effect on my body. I tense up more, which my upper body doesn’t like. Still, there’s more variation here than in Elite. I can see me staying in until the next game comes. That’ll be No Man’s Sky, which has heaps of hype about it.

Talking of hype …

I’m currently reading Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke but I’m really tempted to dive into The Martian again. Can’t wait for that film to come, hopefully it lives up to the expectations I’ve had for it since reading the book. It has a magic combination of :

Great science
Drama through accident
Accidents having a “yeah, this could easily happen”, rather than the stupidity causes in a film like Interstellar
(Interstellar was an amazing film but most of the drama in that was from the stupidity of the characters)
Excellent (sometimes dark) humour
Wonderful characters
Keeps you guessing, keeps you reading.

Yep. I really enjoyed that book and I’m looking forward to seeing the film. I suspect I’ll see it a few times with … the work-ish friends (CK, CQ, BD), a gamer friend (Luth) and Cupid’s Gift if her existing arrangement to see it falls through due to her injury.

Heal up soon Cupid’s Gift !

PS My healing ? It’s continuing. There are still a few awkward spots but the damage is still steadily receding. Completely healed by Xmas ? I hope so.